Nothing of much consequence happened today, other than the collective daydreaming of my coursemates and I about the various foods and beverages we wished we were eating. I know I will be making several more trips to the organic coffee stand while I’m here. It was 35 degrees when we woke up yesterday, and I…
I left Portland at around 7:00 a.m. and needed to arrive at the course site for our 9:30 a.m. morning circle. I made very good time despite the rain. The one thing I remember from the ride is the billboard for cage fighting. Unbelievable! I was barely 15 minutes outside Eugene when the fuel light…
Another restless night on the futon. I even had someone take the frame out from under the futon mattress. Apparently I am just universally unable to sleep on futons – at least the old, thin mattresses. When one hip succumbed to excruciating pain, I switched to the other one. This continued every few hours throughout…
I slept barely a wink last night. Obviously last night’s restful sleep on the futon was a fluke. I could feel every board and every separation as I continually adjusted my aching joints from position to position. I was in the kitchen around 7:05 a.m. as part of the cooking crew. Brett, Helen and I…
Well, I feel a lot better this morning than I thought I would. Not sure how that happened. It’s freezing here, so I joined the group of folks in the kitchen this morning waiting for hot water for tea. I had a few cups throughout the morning. Breakfast was hot oatmeal with apples, raisins, brown…
I would’ve made this entry last night, but I was too damned tired! Did I mention 13.5 hour days? I wasn’t joking. I drove my trusty rental car (which was thankfully a Hyundai Elantra and not a Jeep Commander, which is what I got last time I reserved a compact car) the 10 minutes to…
Today is the beginning of 18-days of adventures in permaculture. Several months ago, I signed up for a course in Eugene, Oregon that should result in a Permaculture Design Certificate. I say “should” because it probably won’t result in this certificate. Why? Because I just found out, quite coincidentally, that the structure of this course…
Last weekend, I had the good fortune of going to the ECHO farm in North Ft. Myers with my good friend, Tenille. Their website states: “Our goal is to improve the abilities of international community development workers assisting poor farmers by providing useful, important information and by networking their skills and knowledge with each other.…
Weeds… here in Florida, we all have them. They’re growing out from the cracks in our driveway and lanai. We pull them up, but they grow right back. It’s so tempting to spray them with poisonous weed killing agents and be done with them. But there’s another solution that doesn’t involve harmful chemicals leeching into…
Now that I have taken my new, super cool electric bicycle on a few errands, I can see the differences between riding the electric bike vs electric scooter. I have to say that I’m really loving the electric bicycle, and one of the reasons is that I feel safer. For one, maneuvering a 100 lb…
If you follow me on Facebook, you may know that I recently sold my electric scooter. There were many reasons for doing this – mostly because when something went wrong with it, it was like a 300 pound paperweight. I just didn’t have the resources to be able to maintain it with my lifestyle. My…
So, in my eternal quest for perfect transportation, I considered… gas-powered transportation. But not the big guzzling type… the tiny, efficient type. I found this gas-powered bicycle on Craigslist.com and took my “normal” bicycle on a ride to see it. It was a long ride on a hot afternoon, but I made it! The bike was…
Earlier this year, I had the brilliant idea of putting hoops over my garden. I cleverly did this using some PVC plumbing pipes. They came in 10 foot lengths, and I used brackets to hook them to my garden at 2-foot intervals. I was then lucky enough to find that Gardener’s Supply sells big sheets…
I had the distinct pleasure of going to a small town in Colorado with a big elevation: Telluride. This little one stop-light town sits high in a box canyon – 8,750 feet to be exact. With less than 2,500 residents, Telluride is the most populated town in San Miguel county, which stretches 1,288 miles through…
Denver is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited – and not just because I flew there to see Pearl Jam in concert. It also has a really great downtown. What makes their downtown great is how pedestrian-friendly it is. Their downtown is like a destination.